Beginner's Guide to DekiScript
Table of contents
THIS GUIDE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. PLEASE HELP US MAKE IT BETTER!
Feedback on this tutorial is greatly appreciated: please join the discussion on the forums!
Who this is for
This guide is for the MindTouch user who wants to start experimenting with DekiScript. Basic knowledge of programming concepts is highly recommended, since this guide will not teach them. Rather, the goal here is develop understanding and intuition of critical DekiScript fundamentals such as
- entering a script on a page
- avoiding common pitfalls
- less-common language features
- how to get further help
Prerequisites
A little bit of background in these areas will help you enormously in understanding what's going on here:
- HTML: understanding the basics of HTML is a virtual requirement. You don't have to be an expert but you need to be comfortable with it.
- CSS: not as critical but very helpful. Again, guru-level expertise is not necessary, just basic familiarity.
- XML: if you don't already know it you're going to learn some.
- XPATH: this is a staple of the XML processing in DekiScript. It's pretty easy to learn if you don't already know it.
- Programming: since DekiScript is a programming language, any programming knowledge you bring to the table will be very helpful. If you don't have this background, though, don't be discouraged: you should still be able to do some useful stuff with DekiScript, but it may be a bit more of a struggle.
Finally, this guide is intended for users of Mindtouch version 9.02 (Lyons) or later. No effort has been made to identify differences in behavior among older versions. In general, if you're doing much with DekiScript, you really want to upgrade to 9.02 (at least).
How this is organized
The Beginner's Guide is structured as a series of independent articles, each focusing on one particular important aspect of DekiScript programming. You may read through them in order, or just use them as references when necessary.
Guide Contents
This guide is a perpetual work-in-progress, so the contents should grow as time passes. Here's what we have so far:
- Entering a Script on a Page: The first thing is to understand the ins and outs of how to actually get a DekiScript running on your page, including the surprisingly tricky techniques of copying code from various places and pasting it onto your pages. This section will expose you to various DekiScript constructs; it will help if you've already read a bit of the documentation on this site and/or experimented a bit.
- Working with XML Literals: First introduced in 9.02 (Lyons), XML Literals are the magic elixir to cure our need to use HTML statement. This article covers everything you need to know to take full advantage without getting tripped up.
- Miscellaneous Pitfalls: This is a grab-bag of other traps and pitfalls you're likely to encounter.
How to get additional help
Where to go
- The Official documentation. Here there's the ever-useful reference pages (you'll spend lots of time on the DekiScript functions and variables and Wiki functions and variables pages), and a bunch of tutorials and FAQ items that are written at various levels. That's where this page lives. Finally, don't forget this critical document: What's new in DekiScript for Lyons?
- The forums. For DekiScript-specific issues, you're directed to the DekiScript and MindTouch Extensions forum, but there's usually some discussion in the General Technical Discussions forum as well.
How to ask for help
If you're having a problem, and can't find the answer via searching the wiki or the forums (always search first!), you might head over to the forums to ask for help. Here are some tips to help get you to an answer as quickly and efficiently as possible:
<guidelines for posting questions to forums go here; TBD>
- Tag page
- What links here
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